 Good afternoon and welcome to Moments with Melinda. My name is Melinda Moulton, and my guest today is Hugo Martinez-Cazone, who has just written a story in the Vermont history for the Vermont Historical Society on the Lumiere Brothers, who discovered color photography and had a building in Burlington. So let me, hello Hugo, how are you? Hi Melinda, it's great to see you again. It's so great to see you. I'm going to read to my folks a little bit about you. Sure. Okay, Hugo Martinez-Cazone has worked for more than 30 years for private environmental consulting companies, and for the Vermont State Department of Environmental Conservation. Since 1992, he has dedicated his spare time to uncovering the story of the Lumiere company in North America, hoping to encourage the preservation of their remarkable factory building that still stands on the Burlington waterfront. And here it is, here's the story right here. It's great, it's amazing. It's 1992, that's a lot of time. Well listen, Hugo, let's talk about you sharing with my viewers, who are you? And tell us a little bit about your life, and what brought you to this. Sure, sure. Well, I'm originally born in Argentina and partially raised both in Argentina in the United States, and I've lived in Vermont over 30 years. And I've really always been very much interested in environmental engineering. And so I've lived in Vermont, like I said, 30 years, worked with private sector consultants for a long time, and then worked for the state. And both of those have really gotten me into a position to get to know a big part of the history of Vermont, just by being where people have worked and traveling to almost every town in Vermont. So it's a great experience, and it's a great way to understand Vermont, and to understand the part of Vermont which I think is maybe not as well known, which is the non-rural part of Vermont's history. And so that's been really fascinating for me. You were asking me about me earlier. I mean, when I was 14, I used to go to the library in Argentina and read the census. So I think that everybody, they have some characteristic of theirs as they're growing up. I think that told me something about what I would like to do in the future. I wanted to understand how the population in my home city of Buenos Aires had changed over the years. And so I kind of brought that kind of way of looking at it, brought me towards finding this building. And also in Argentina in lots of places, the Lumiere brothers are hailed a lot. In the United States, I think people that are into photography and cinema might know who the Lumiere's are, but they're not as much of a household name. Well, I certainly didn't know who they were. I mean, and by the way, you and I have worked together and to my viewers, Ugo has been really instrumental in protecting the environment here in Vermont through his work. So I want to bring that up too because I've had the opportunity to work with you. And you and I met a couple of years ago when you shared the story. So let's jump right into this. You've been working on this now since the 1990s. So what happened? I mean, how did you get involved in wanting to research and know about this? Were you walking down Flynn Avenue and happened to see the building and go, oh, what's the history with this? What was that inspiration? What was that spark? Well, to do the work that I do, in the late 1980s, I started looking at historical maps as a way of understanding the industry that I was trying to, when I worked for a private sector, and try to figure out what was the process that was underway in the factory to understand what kind of impact it might have and what action might be needed. So in the 1990s, technology was not what it is today. And so to look at old maps, I was looking at an old map on microfilm and you had to turn the handle around and spin the microfilm. And so I was trying to do work on a particular project and in spinning the microfilm around, you would see the image go by and this image of a building upside down, the name of the building was sideways. I saw that it said Lumière and I stopped because I knew who the Lumières were. I was recently in Vermont and I thought, well, it could be a French last name in Vermont because there's a lot of French names in Vermont. And, but I just kind of kept scratching my head and going back to it and saying, well, it says that it makes photographic materials and that would be quite a coincidence. But the part of the story that's hard to convey is that for most people that know who the Lumières were, the story about them is that they were geniuses but kind of recluse and their factory was right next to their house and they didn't go out building factories all over the world. So there would be no reason for this building on this map to be there. And also you asked me, how did I find the building? The map just showed the outline of the building. It didn't really give me a good idea of where it was located. So it took a while to even figure out where this shape was originally and had no idea if the building still existed because it's a building from 1901. It could have easily have been torn down. So it took a long time to figure out that this particularly shaped building was where it was located. Okay, so let's talk about, it's on Flynn Avenue and you talk about it in your article. I think it would help to get folks to understand who the Lumiere brothers are and why they chose Burlington. If I could have you read from the book, a paragraph and I think we should read from page 124 which really talks about why they chose Burlington because they came from France, right? And they had their factory and their business there and they had an office in New York but they came to Burlington, Vermont which is really what inspired you to do this story because they were really the fathers, the creators of color photography. And so this is extraordinary. So why don't we read this chapter to get all of our viewers up to snuff about what this is about? Sure. Thank you. It's called The Choice of Burlington, Vermont as the location for Lumiere North American. By 1900, the small city of Burlington on Lake Champlain had become a powerhouse of dye production for the textile industry. It would soon find itself coloring the images of the world. Burlington offered an unparalleled combination of advantages for the Lumiere's. The placement of the Lumiere factory in Burlington was both a commercial and a scientific strategy. Although distant from the population centers in Boston or New York City, the town's port facilities and robust railroad network allowed product delivery to the East Coast and easy access to the Midwest, as well as an export route to Canada. Burlington was an industrial center with unique chemical and manufacturing expertise. Alongside some of the nation's largest medicine fabricators, such as Taft's Merlin Toothpaste and the Wells and Richardson Patent Medicine Company, Burlington was home to the Diamond Dye Company, one of the largest producers of chemical dyes in the world. The chemical advancements necessary to achieve improved black and white images were even more important for direct color photography. Another great advantage was that Burlington's substantial French-speaking workforce would allow Vice President from Lyon to run the factory. At the dawn of the 20th century, Burlington had a population of 18,640. The city was served by three railroads, Central Vermont, Rutland, and Rutland, Canadian, and was one of the largest lumber markets in the world. Wholesale manufacturing trade amounted to $14 million annually, and that would be about $391 billion in today's dollars. And smaller industries employed some 3,500 people with monthly wages, receipts of $140,000. Soon, Lumiere North American was listed among the city's cluster of industries. Thank you, Hugo. Thank you so much for saying that. So let's dig into a little bit of this history. And we're gonna talk about the cover as soon as we understand a little bit more about this. Who were the Lumiere family? And what you just read, we know now why they chose, but who were they? Tell us about them and who they were. Well, first we have to start with Antoine. Antoine Lumiere was kind of the patriarch of multiple generations of inventors. So that's pretty unique to them. Antoine perfected black and white photography and there was a lot of competition in the 1890s to the 1900s to really have a high quality black and white image. And so he propelled that and his son, Louis began and then continued to work with his brother, Auguste. And Louis and Auguste worked under Antoine and built the Lumiere photographic industry into the largest in the world. Just in the 1900s, there was a big World's Fair in Paris. We could talk a little bit more about it later, but they represented one of the largest producers of photographic materials then. In 1895, they had invented cinematics and autographed film, movies. And so by 1909, every town in the world would have a movie theater. So this is the degree to which the Lumiere's changed our lives. And Auguste and Louis began to explore how to make color photography. Something that people had been working on for over a hundred years and had said, this is just not gonna work. We have all the best chemists in Germany, Poland, Russia, England, France, everybody was working on it, not only in the United States, it's just not gonna happen. And so Auguste and Louis were also inventors like their father. They worked on cinema and color photography. And there's another generation of Lumiere's after them, but the decision to make the building here for photographic plates was during Auguste and Louis Lumiere. So they were really pivotal in making the decision to come here. And today the Institute Lumiere is really very renowned and we can get into that a little bit more, but the Lumiere brothers are a mean though introduction in Europe. So this building is very, very important because of that. Well, let's talk about that for a minute. Thank you for that, Hugo. Now, they were only in Burlington for a few years from 1901 up until about 1912 and the factory was built specific to their needs, which meant that it had to be very, very dark. So it was specific to their operation, but then they closed it down. Why did they close it down and what happened to the building after they left? Well, the reason they came is also in a way the reason they left. The reason they came to Vermont and Burlington was a thriving small town that had all the conditions that they were looking for, but the reason they came to the United States was the United States was a very large market for their products and the tariffs for importing photographic materials were so high that they could never dream of making the product in France and exporting it to the United States. And also photographic materials were kind of like the invention of computers or the invention of the cell phone. It was impossible for the policy makers to come up with a good policy on taxing the imports because it was a new technology. So that's what brought them here. Now, 10 years or 11 years later, there was a swing in the policy on taxation for imports. And so it became too expensive for them to produce the film in the United States. There was a lot of demand for it, but the price was gonna go up if they continued to build it in Vermont. So it was really a commercial, it was not at all that the product was not successful, quite the contrary, but it was just too expensive to make it at that point. And it was a business decision. And they sold it at a loss from what I understand. So one of the big, one of the focuses of no pun intended of your article is auto-chrome. Now, we all remember coda-chrome and the other chromes that we did film that we would put in our cameras and then we'd send off in a little bag and our pictures would come back. Well, they created an auto-chrome, which was a process at the time that did not exist. And it was said and in quotes that the pictures themselves are so startling true that they surpass anyone's keenest expectations. Now on the cover of the Vermont History Journal, which by the way, folks, it is volume 89, number two, the summer fall, 2021, there is a photograph. And my understanding is that this was one of the first photographs that was taken with auto-chrome, auto-chrome. Yeah, well, it's, yeah, that's, you know, if you're holding that magazine, it reproduces the first time a magazine had a photograph of a person in color. So it's the first magazine cover showing a person in color, 1908. That is a nice point. It's amazing. What happened was that the printing industry, you know, they had no reason to believe anybody was going to invent color photography. So they didn't have the technology to take a photograph and reproduce it onto a magazine cover. So auto-chrome came out in 1907 and you mentioned coda-chrome just to put everybody in the same picture. Coda-chrome, you know, like if you ask everyday people, they say, well, coda-chrome late 1940s, maybe early 1950s, I remember my parents or my grandparents or I had a camera from those days. But this is 1904 and it's 35 years before and the color quality and the detail is amazing. There's a photographer called O'Gorman, O-Apostrophe, G-O-R-M-A-N. I hope that your listeners will look that up as an auto-chrome, because there's this beautiful suite of photographs taken by that photographer. And it's just beyond description. You can see pebbles on a beach, you know, individually. It's much better quality than the early coda-chrome and Eastman actually when he heard that the Lumiere's were beginning to build a factory here, did everything he could to try to steal the process because the competition was quite amazing. This was gonna be a new product that nobody had imagined possible. So it took Kodak many years after to come up with anything similar. So how long did the auto-chrome remain popular and then what did replace it? Well, auto-chrome, it's really great. In 2019, I went to Leon and I visited the Institut Lumiere. They have a big festival every year for film and there's a little store there. I went to this young man focuses on antiques and one of the things that people come from all around the world to buy are film that he has been finding over the years. And so he showed me some, he opened the box of Lumiere film just so that I could see what the box looked like when you packaged it. And so yeah, I mean the Lumiere film was made into the 1930s, but then the Lumiere company was coalesced with the Jougla, that's J-O-U-G-L-A company that made film as well. So they combined forces and it became Jougla Lumiere. But the decision to leave Burlington was made by the Jougla Lumiere company because by then Jougla had bought into the company. So in reading the article refrigeration was really important to the operations of the Lumiere factory. And they ran pipes a thousand feet into Lake Champlain back in 1901. Now as an environmental consultant, would you have approved this back then? Or then you probably would have approved it, but. Well, I would have because there were no regulations. But today they couldn't have been, they wouldn't have been able to do that, right? Well, I'm not the person that regulates that, so I wouldn't be able to give you an answer. I think it would be designed within the rules that are prevalent today. Back in those days they were able to just put the pipe in the water, so you're right. I mean, they were able to just do that. And today it would be different. But the water refrigerated the building. So it was really amazing that they could, they could keep the building cool at a steady temperature throughout the year. And they also anticipated what would become a clean room. So like IBM or Intel factory making chips, they anticipated that they needed to have an environment where there would be no dust that could land on the film. So they were really controlling the manufacturing rooms in a way that's very, very modern by today's standards. And the cooling tower is still visible if you go to the building, it's above, you can see it above the boiler house. So how I would get to the building is to go down Flynn Avenue. Do I cross the railroad tracks and go left? No, as soon as you cross the railroad tracks, there is an immediate right into a driveway that sweeps around and goes down. And you'll see a really, really tall, beautiful brick chimneys that will lead you to the building. It's a flat, very, very large building, one-story building and then the boiler house is separate. And there's a small administrative building that still stands and each one of them has businesses in them. And it's still there. It's all still there. Yeah, it's amazing. Here's a picture of it, I'm going to put this up. And Ugo, who's there now? Who's occupying the building? Well, there's a number of businesses are there. The business that you'll see when you approach the main entrance of the building is Burlington Beer Company. And they've been in the news because they recently went there and they've been very supportive and they really, really are appreciative that they're part of the Lumiere building. So that's really cool. So it's alive and well and it's brewing beer and isn't that fabulous? It is, it is. And also it's wonderful to see that people find a sense of identity with the building and that this is a heritage that's going to be into the future. So it's not, I see it as today being the beginning of the story. It's not just, oh, well, we know the Lumiere building is there and that's the end of that. This is going to have many chapters into the future. And I'm really excited about that. Are you the one who's doing the chapters? Are you working on the chapters? Well, I think that there's some things that I certainly am doing. It's, but also people that have been really supportive, like Mike, you know, I wanted, before I get too far ahead of myself, I wanna thank Mike Sherman, who was the editor at Vermont History, who picked up the story and helped get it to publishing. My friend, Louise, who helped me with edits. And also, I mean, there was a small article in the free press about it. Well, actually not a small article, really well-written article in the free press about it. And the other thing that you'll see in this article that really, really seals the story as being legitimately the Lumiere factory is that there's an inventory of everything in the factory from 1904 that is in the book of deeds. And I had figured out that there had to be a visit by the Lumiere's to the city. So one of the things that's in the story is that the Lumiere brothers did come to Burlington. And the inventory kind of proves the functioning of the building and what was in the building. Mary O'Neill at the city of Burlington helped me find that document. So I think that the chapters into the future will be about understanding who the workers were. It was a French speaking community. And that's a really important part of understanding our past here. So what do you think the Lumiere brothers would think of our smartphones, taking photos and storing them and sharing them and allowing us to correct the photos and enhance the colors right from a small little thin box in our hands without any wires or chemicals? How do you think they, what do you think they think about that? You know, I think they would not be too surprised. I think that they were very, very advanced thinking people and it's amazing how much was possible even with those technologies. They, when they came out with color photography one of the things that the press talked about is this is such high quality imaging that we can't tell it from the reality. And people are gonna be, they were discussing this exactly what you say. They were discussing already that journalists were going to be able to edit the photographs and that you wouldn't know what was real anymore because the color photograph was of such high quality. But also they invented so many other products that I think they would have been tickled. But I don't think that they would have been shocked, because I think they were really creative people. Well, tickled is good, Ugo, it's good. So I am, I also was blown away about the amount of research that you've put into this and it's been 20 some years that you've devoted to this project. And it was such an enlightening article. What do you think about having it made into a film? I mean. Oh, well. This story would make an incredible film. I am so happy you asked that question. I didn't know you were gonna ask that, but yeah, I would love, love, love, love to find the resources to make this a film. My friend filmmaker, John Suma, helped me make a trailer and it would be a wonderful fiction movement and I think both of those would work really, really well. And it fits in with film. I mean, it's all about film. I mean, why wouldn't there be a film about this extraordinary story? So I'd like, I'd love to know what your next project is or is this, are you just gonna continue on with the Lumiere Brothers and this incredible story? What are you thinking? Well, right now I'm getting support from the audience and I think it would be a great Well, right now I'm getting support from the French Consulate Representative in Vermont, which is really exciting. They've been very, very warm and thoughtful about this because I think that, you know, it's the heritage of French culture in Vermont that needs to be preserved and celebrated. But also the best way to do that is to have an active role into the future. So I think there will be more things to celebrate that and to make it more accessible to people. I'm researching right now an article that I hope to have out, a shorter article, not as long as this, but now that the building is kind of recognized for what it is, I think the story about the workers is where I'm focusing right now. But certainly there's more research to be done on the auto-chrome process itself, the chemistry of the process. What we haven't talked about is the amazing influence in art that it represented then and how it changed art. Cause one of the things in this article is the role Alfred Stiglitz had in giving us access to auto-chrome. He took photographs in auto-chrome. He was the most representational artist of his time in photography. He was married to Georgia O'Peefe. But to know that he took photographs in auto-chrome and the thing that I really love about his role in this is that Stiglitz in his own words says that the auto-chrome process made at Lumiere North America and the shorthand in those days was the LNA process, Lumiere North America. He says, I have film for auto-chrome that's from Leon and from Burlington. And he says, I really love the quality of the film. That's the LNA process, the Lumiere North America process. So to have that from Stiglitz directly is... Pretty special. Like you said, it took many years to investigate but that was such a joy to find. Well, Hugo, we've run out of time here. I want my viewers to be able to find this article. And I know that it's in the Vermont history of the Vermont Historical Society Journal. It may be online, but you have to log into their site. Is there an easier way for folks to be able to read this article? Well, my understanding is yes. I mean, for one, you can definitely read it at the library, the public library. Typically they have a copy of the Vermont history journal. And my understanding is that after a few months, because this is primarily the publication that goes to the members of the Historical Society, eventually it will be online and accessible publicly. Well, as soon as it is, I would love to know that. Well, I'm gonna have to sign off here with the end of our show. Hugo Martinez goes on. I am just enamored with this story, with this article about the Lumiere North America Company that ended up on Flynn Avenue in Burlington, Vermont. And I've always just enjoyed you and your company so much. And I wanna thank you for taking this time today with me and my viewers. And I'm gonna stop the recording. I'm asking you to hang on here a little bit because I wanna just wish you well. So to my viewers, thank you for tuning in and I will see you again for moments with Melinda. Goodbye.